Farewell to Ed Hartnett

Ed Hartnett pleading for help from the netCDF community

The Unidata Program Center wishes a fond farewell to Ed Hartnett, who has left Unidata for a position at the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP). He will be joining two other Unidata alumni — developers Anne Wilson and Doug Lindholm — at the lab, and will be working on the ground data system for the Total Solar Irradiance Sensor instrument package, which will measure spectral and total solar irradiance.

Hartnett came to the Unidata Program Center as a software developer in 2003 on a NASA-funded project to merge netCDF with HDF5. In addition to his tireless work developing and supporting netCDF, Ed made significant contributions to the LibCF and GRIDSPEC projects.

Hartnett took the task of supporting netCDF users and developers seriously, and leaves behind a wealth of useful advice, much of which has been captured in Unidata's netcdfgroup mailing list archives. For example, he went out of his way in explaining the process of compiling netCDF 4.1.3 with support for the HDF5 format:

... The correct way to solve this is with the environment variables, which leaves full control in the hands of the user.

The use of the --with options was an plot perpetrated by my evil twin, who hates netCDF and all it stands for. He roams the Earth, attempting to convince scientists to store their data in undocumented binary formats. It makes for an awkward Thanksgiving dinner, but that's family for you.

Understanding Hartnett's email to the netcdfgroup mailing list sometimes required literary skills:

As my dear old dad used to say: "indignor quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus."

I will be sure not to make this mistake in future releases.

Instead I'll make some fresh, new mistakes.

"It will be hard to replace Ed," said one source inside the UPC. "We still do not know what to do with his office on the 103rd floor of UCAR Tower #2. We are considering leaving the entire floor empty as a shrine to Ed and netCDF. Full plans are yet to be unveiled, but they will probably include lasers."

Hartnett will be remembered around the UPC offices for his sharp, absurd wit and his ability to get funnier as he drank beer. But don't rely on our opinions; here's what people in the street are saying.

While Hartnett's bicycle commute to his new office at LASP will be just over two miles shorter than his old trek to Unidata's offices in North Boulder, no one believes this affected his decision. We wish him the best.